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upto0013 notes the latest spot of trouble for Google in Europe: the EU says that Google's Street View images violate privacy laws. The EU's privacy watchdog asked Google to notify cities and towns before photographing (Google says it does this already) and to delete original photos after 6 months (Google keeps them for a year and says it has reason to do so). "[T]he privacy official] said that the company should revise its 'disproportionate' policy of keeping the original unblurred images for up to a year, saying improvements in Google's blurring technology and better public awareness would lead to fewer complaints — and a shorter delay for people to react to the photos they see on the site. Complaints about the images put online would usually be checked against the original photos."

You know, the EU has a lot of nerve coming down on google for "privacy violations"; the same body who seems to have exactly no problem at all with Britain's blatant and constant violations, and they've actually been a MEMBER of the EU since 1973.

You know, the EU has a lot of nerve coming down on google for "privacy violations"; the same body who seems to have exactly no problem at all with Britain's blatant and constant violations, and they've actually been a MEMBER of the EU since 1973.

The EU has been around since 1973? How in the world did they form before the internet was invented?

Retaining the DNA of innocent people and using stop and search powers without reasonable suspicion are two areas that come to mind, the UK government has been successfully prosecuted in the ECHR but has yet to comply with the rulings

You do realise that European-level courts have ruled several practices of the British government illegal, including some relating to privacy, in recent months? The fact that the government here is illegally failing to comply with those court rulings and getting away with it is disturbing, but what more would you have the EU do?

In any case, the British government at least has some degree of sovereignty and accountability to its electorate to contend with as a consequence. Google is a mere corporation, and co

I really don't see the philosophical or policy basis for seeing this as something which privacy laws should prohibit. What is visible in public should be photographable to the public. If I can see it with my eyes without violating a law, why shouldn't I be able to photograph it? And if I can do it for individual photos why shouldn't Google be able to do it systematically?

"Officer, I was clearly standing on the street with my camera. It's not my fault that the girl was naked in her bedroom. She shouldn't have left the curtains open."

There's Peeping Tom laws in many places, for one thing, and there's lots of instances of individual efforts being acceptable where organized efforts are held to be unacceptable. For instance, refreshing on a site. One person does it, they're checking for new content. Many people do it, it's a DDoS.

>>>>>"Officer, I was clearly standing on the street with my camera. It's not my fault that the girl was naked in her bedroom. She shouldn't have left the curtains open.">>>>There's Peeping Tom laws in many places, for one thing,

Here in the U.S. laws operate backwards. A Virginia woman was walking her kid to school, she looked through a front window where she saw a naked man, and she was offended for her self and her child. Reasonable people would either charge the woman with pee

Ah, yes, that was quite the media brouhaha around these parts last fall. Despite the fact that it later turned out the woman who filed the complaint had been trespassing, cutting through his yard (resulting in her being in a place a normal person would not have been able to see in his kitchen window) he was convicted of indecent exposure a few months later. The judge waived any jail time, saying that he didn't put people in jail for being stupid [referring to the defendant not closing the curtains] or (an

"Officer, I was clearly standing on the street with my camera. It's not my fault that the girl was naked in her bedroom. She shouldn't have left the curtains open."

What's unreasonable about that? If you want privacy, close your curtains. It's not hard. I understand that peeping tom laws exist, but they shouldn't. Just close your curtains, no need to get the government involved.

I don't think the peeping tom laws go that far. If you took a picture of a building for some other purpose, and the naked girl just happened to appear in it, the I do not believe photo would be illegal. Similarly, I doubt one could get away with hiring someone to stand in the window naked just to make the building unphotographable.

However, remember that the Google van has the camera a lot higher than what you could see walking on the street. For example there has been many cases where the camera has photographed inside peoples apartment or over garden walls, even people without clothes. If you went taking photos of someones backyard that is otherwise shield, you would be violating law. Same thing if you went taking pictures of someone through his/her window. Google is doing exactly this, on a mass scale, and then putting them on the internet for everyone to see.

This is why a huge portion of Tokyo including the street where I used to live is no longer covered by Streetview. The wall outside our landlord neighbour's house is about 2m high. I couldn't see over it when walking by it but the Google pics when they were up it was easy to see into their living room. Most Japanese urban houses are less than 2 meters from the road. In these cases you are able to see what someone walking would not, hence the application of laws related to unnatural viewpoints.

They're not really that high. The earliest streetview vehicle [google.com] was a van, but they're using sedans now (photos at the link). The camera is no higher than the head of a driver of an SUV, perhaps not even as high.

I really don't see the philosophical or policy basis for seeing this as something which privacy laws should prohibit. What is visible in public should be photographable to the public. If I can see it with my eyes without violating a law, why shouldn't I be able to photograph it? And if I can do it for individual photos why shouldn't Google be able to do it systematically?

Just for the sake of argument...

You drop skin cells in public all the time. Would you object to me collecting them, analyzing your DNA, and then sharing with the world a list of your genetic limitations?

Or...

Women wear skirts in public. In various circumstances, for instance on glass walkways, this creates "visibility issues." That's not a big problem. Would it be acceptable for the owner of such a walkway to stick a camera underneath, photograph each person, then put the photos on a website that connec

It's not like they are photographing the insides of peoples houses. They are photographing the streets and outsides of peoples houses. So unless they are hopping over walls of gated communities we are talking public spaces here. I must be missing something here, cause I don't get it! I can understand inside your house is your place, but outside your house is public space. Well unless they have to drive up a private driveway to get pictures of the driveway and if that is the case, it should be marked private property.

I should look into copyrighting my house. Maybe I'll paint text all over it, and then copyright that.

I must be missing something here, cause I don't get it!

If there were a picture of my house in your personal photo albums, I would find that very weird. If I found you outside my house taking pictures of it from the street, I would feel vaguely threatened and would want to know what your motives were. If you told me that you were going to post them to make money and asserted your right to stand there taking pictures of my house, I would probably call the cops.

You may feel that way but your feelings don't give you or anyone else the right to violate the rights of others to take pictures in a public place. I am a photographer and I bristle at the suggestion you have that right. Only because a lot of cops and people post 9/11 think that for some reason they do have the right to stop someone taking photographs in a public place. And they do not. Google has a right to do this taking photographs in a public place is legal the EU as usual is harping on companies out of bounds.

I can't believe the hipocracy what with the thousands of surveillance cameras in EU member state Great Britain. There are actually people watching those specifically to violate the privacy of UK citizens where's the outrage there?

Please try to come up with something more important than this! This absolutely rediculous because publishing a photo in a newspaper could also be an infringement of privacy!

Except that it's consistently been held that for purposes of reporting something in the public interest is greater than an individual's privacy, and they *still* need to do due diligence in getting photographic releases for certain things. There's no news value in Google's Street View, and it's more pervasive. It's not a single picture, it's multiple pictures, angles, and setting.

And even newspapers and tv channels have to be careful about it if normal people are involved. For example if you publish a photograph of someone accused of some crime with his face being identifiable, and it turns out he is innocent, newspapers will be liable to pay big sums for damages. This is also why the European versions of "Cops" always have peoples faces blurred while it doesn't seem to be so in the American version.

It is multiple angles of location, but not multiple angles of a single person. Street View is never taken at the same time as a satalite image, proving that this is not about privacy infringement of data mining of individuals, but just from locations and buildings...

Multiple angles of person or location doesn't matter. When an individual goes around taking multiple pictures of a building from many angles, you know what it's usually labelled? "Casing a joint." You know, gathering information for robbing it. Street View could potentially remove the need to *visit* a location before robbing it, especially with that page from a few days ago, "Please Rob Me" that links people's twitters and such to location-specific, showing when they're away from home. So yes, it's still p

Except that it's consistently been held that for purposes of reporting something in the public interest is greater than an individual's privacy, and they *still* need to do due diligence in getting photographic releases for certain things. There's no news value in Google's Street View

But there is public interest in having Street View. With street view I can check out actual pictures of the intersections and buildings near my destination, and it's that much easier to find my way around. There are really no privacy implications because you're in public anyway.

They could do two passes on places and use the double collected data in order remove people and other movable things. I think this is and practically theoretically feasible.

That would be harder than you think. The position of the camera could vary by several feet. If it's a windy day, you have foliage moving around. If the passes are not widely separated in time, many people would be in the same location -- cafe diners and sunbathers come to mind. If the passes are widely separated in time, then you have differences in the angle of the sun and changes in weather to take into account. It's much more difficult than taking a few pictures from a tripod over a couple of minutes and editing out pedestrians and cars.

No, Privacy Watchdogs in the EU are concerned. Such a basic reading comprehension should remove any "insightful" modding. The EU allows individual nations to govern themselves, but the Street View affects ALL the countries, so the EU gets to handle it as a cohesive whole. Thus, the situations are not analogous. If the UK wanted to put up CCTV cameras in France to watch UK citizens on vacation, then it'd be more closely related to Street View.

Did you read the article? There is a specific line that states "Last year, privacy watchdogs in the U.K. formally complained after its introduction there", I chose to respond to that bit because the UK is notorious for "privacy abuse".

Surely I am not the only person living in the EU that sees Google Street Maps as a liberating technology. I have searched for countless things from my office and my home, and each time came away favourable with Street Maps. I think the EU is wrong on this one. What exactly are the dangers that they foresee with this technology?

The UK government can store my data, within a lot of areas they track me constantly with CCTV, they want to look at my genitals when I fly and then there's Echelon. Quite frankly Google Street View is the least of my concerns.

Streetview is a good tool, but with any mass data collection you need to strike a balance.

There is nothing wrong with watching a street, but people/cars should be blurred, and that was effectively what Google promised to do, also in Switzerland, only that they didn't do it well enough, and the retention of such material must be explained.

What I positively do NOT like about Streetview is that it offers to zoom in on windows - that really is invasive. In addition, they have the problem that they take pictures from an elevated viewpoint. I can understand why (try looking over parked cars otherwise), but people build fences for privacy, and they thus ended up with problems in privacy concious countries like Japan and Switzerland.

As a matter of fact, I remarked at the time that I didn't find it surprising the Switzerland asked questions - I found it amazing no EU regulator had done the same. Now I know why - they weren't exposed to the issues yet. Now they are, and thankfully they are asking the same questions.

I personally hope Google will pay attention, because addressing this intelligently would do much to address the privacy worries Google is creating. I don't think there is malice involved, it's more a culture clash, and IMHO it can be resolved with a bit of thinking.

Married Google chief executive Eric Schmidt has forced his mistress toremove her personal blog from the web, according to reports. The54-year-old CEO has been linked to other women in the past and he isbelieved to be either separated or in an open relationship with hiswife Wendy.

"No-one is perfect. In the real world, people occasionally make mistakes, and reveal things publicly that they did not expect or intend to share with the world. As you demonstrate no willingness to take this into account, we are imposing draconian laws that basically kill your business model. If your business model dies because many people will find it offensive, maybe you shouldn't have been doing it in the first place."

It is a giant ass blue van that is well labeled. And stalking/harassment are illegal. If google made a van follow you around they'd be in shit. Sitting outside your house for a few days is probably 100% legal unless it falls under stalking laws where you happen to be. Hanging out by a school is also legal. Putting a ladder against someone's house is illegal. Upskirts are illegal and I've no idea how you would upskirt with a van unless you have a thing for giants. CCTV cams also legal obviously...

Are you kidding me?! If you are sitting out somewhere where john Q public can walk by and see you in the buff, how much could you possibly really care about your privacy? Hey, if you don't want people to know that you sit naked on your porch, stop doing it! They can see you!

If I remember correctly, that case involved Google's van photographing him over his garden wall, so no, he wasn't clearly visible to anyone just walking by. If you climbed up the garden wall and photographed people without clothes in their private property, you would be breaking law too. Even without even putting them on the Internet for everyone to see.

That's pretty much irrelevant. As has been said on/. often enough, once it's posted on the Internet, it's essentially impossible to remove it later*.

*Unless what is posted is the only surviving copy of some piece of data that is critically important to you (your masters thesis, the open source project that was going to make you more famous than Linus, photographic evidence that bigfoot and/or the Roswell aliens actually exist, etc.). Then no matter how hard you look, it won't be cached anywhere.

They asked and Google complied, but it doesn't change the fact that it was still against law to do so and then putting it on the Internet (and you know how easy it is to take down something once put on the Internet)

That wooshing noise was the point flying over your head. The burden for preventing such a clear and abusive invasion of privacy should not lie with the potential abusee, and a system where people (or corporations) can invade your privacy and then share the results with the world unless you actively opt out does not scale.

I prefer the approach taken by Japan, where this over-the-wall problem was common given typical Japanese architecture and infringements were widespread, and Google was forced to throw away the lot.

No, but you know the camera is on top of the van (and itself quite tall), so it photographs places otherwise not visible. Lets try again: if you climbed on top of a van to photograph private properties otherwise not visible and took pictures of people without clothes there, you would be violating law.

That leads to some interesting legal questions. REALLY interesting ones.

Did he have a reasonable expectation to privacy if his garden wall was shorter than the Google Street View van plus the mast they put the camera on? The sample image on the article shows the street view camera perspective looking to be at least 3 meters high, at a guess. If I took a camera and put a 2-meter stepladder on the sidewalk and took a picture of him from 4 meters off the ground, is that a violation of a reasonable expectati

What impossible thing is mandated here? EU is just saying Google needs to fix their blurring technology as it violates privacy laws or stop doing what they're doing. If it's not technically possible for Google to automatically blur faces, then they need to hire people to do manual blurring or forget the whole thing in EU area.

No it isn't, but what laws are being broken? Google is taking photos of *public* streets and the nearby view. This is no different than when painters used to sit with their paintings and draw what they saw, or when tourists captured images with their disposable cameras.

Leaving aside the fact that you are completely wrong and many laws do protect privacy in various ways even outside your own home, Google seems to believe that you also don't have privacy within the walls of your house, if they can mount a very high camera that can see over those walls.

I think the general question of how to treat observations made using specialised equipment that can detect more than a human alone is a tricky one, and something that privacy laws are going to have to confront head-on as technology improves. In Streisand's case, it was a plane, but anything from a satellite looking down onto private property to a listening device that can pick up private conversations inside another building would prompt the same question, as indeed does using the Google camera van here.

What reasonable privacy can you expect in the out-of-doors or with the curtains open?

You don't like people looking into your yard, put up a high fence. You don't want to be on satellite? Sun yourself underneath the porch or a shade. It's the way the world is nowadays and making it illegal won't make the fundamental technology go away.

This would double the cost, because every thing would have to be photographed twice and some attempt at synchronizing the location of each shot would be needed, at least to a degree close enough to allow image processing to retain the unchanged bits and remove the cars, people, etc.

Technically possible.

But why do this? People are in publicly viewable areas when photographed. They have no expectation of privacy.

I love it when the government writes a law forcing someone else to do something, then the government officials who drafted the law take credit for it. Hilarious! As if those idiots ever did anything other than sit around and talk!